I still get stage fright horribly. I still get nervous. I do tend to find when you're playing characters, often - just for the time you're playing them - there are sides of your personality that get stronger because you draw on them more.

I still get stage fright horribly. I still get nervous. I do tend to find when you're playing characters, often - just for the time you're playing them - there are sides of your personality that get stronger because you draw on them more.

Once you start [filming] you have researchers who are constantly giving you information. Ultimately it isn't about impersonating or trying to be an image of somebody and more trying to capture the spirit and the soul of the person somehow.

I would argue [princess] Margaret is the tragic figure of the century.

I knew she was a party girl. The book I liked most on her was called [princess] Margaret: A Life of Contrasts and getting to know her, it was how conflicted her position and her internal life - or self - was. She is so fiercely royal and so fiercely "sister of the queen" or "daughter of the king" because that is her identity and it's all she's ever known. And at the same time she is struggling to push the boundaries and to break away from it, to be different or to modernize the monarchy, to turn it on its head.

People are so much more fascinated by the royal family generally than in England.

Marking the differences between them was really important. It just became second nature. When we were choosing pajamas or something, instantly you'd be able to spot: those are [princess] Margaret, those are [princess] Elizabeth. It became this sort of language, really, of the two sisters.